After the Fire, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming 1998

Marion Belanger made this photograph, After the Fire, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, sometime after 1988. It’s a grayscale image with a lot of tonal range, from pale grays to deep charcoal blacks. The composition feels very deliberate, like a painter carefully building up layers. Look at the way the light catches the fallen trees. The texture is so rich, you can almost feel the rough bark and splintered wood. It reminds me of Ansel Adams, but there's a raw, almost unsettling quality here that's all Belanger. What really grabs me is the contrast between the devastation and the hints of new growth. See those tiny green shoots pushing through the ashen ground? It's a powerful reminder of nature's resilience, but also a stark acknowledgement of loss. Like Vija Celmins’ drawings of the ocean, this is a work of patient observation that speaks to the vastness and the fragility of the natural world.